Stress, stress, stress!

What happens in the body?

When you are under stress, this means that your body is put on high alert by your brain. This works because your body can release special substances, so-called stress hormones, which quickly make you insensitive to pain and particularly alert.

What is eustress?

One of these hormones is adrenaline. It ensures that your lungs can absorb more oxygen. It also speeds up your heartbeat so that more blood is pumped through your body. Your muscles, brain and lungs can work more powerfully in the short term and you can concentrate better. This can be very useful, for example when taking an exam at school. Sometimes it is also really nice to be under stress, for example when falling in love. Researchers call this kind of positive stress eustress, which comes from the Greek eu = good.

What is disstress?

Adrenaline has a short-term effect, while the stress hormone cortisol has a long-term effect: for example, it ensures that the body has enough sugar available, as prolonged stress in particular requires a lot of energy. Among other things, our body releases a lot of cortisol when we feel overwhelmed over a longer period of time and have too much on our plate.

This can gradually become unhealthy: The cortisol then ensures, for example, that you can no longer switch off so well at night. Your immune system becomes weaker and the production of happiness hormones is inhibited. So you can become really sad from all the stress, get sick more easily, sleep badly, don't get as much done and become even more stressed.

In science, this type of negative, long-term stress is called disstress, which comes from the Greek dis = bad.

What to do?

There are various tricks to avoid slipping deeper and deeper into such harmful stress: Do less! Find out where the stress is coming from. Sometimes it helps to take on less and, above all, to do what you really enjoy and is good for you.